| by B.Raman
( November 28, 2012, Chennai, Sri Lanka
Guardian) The Intelligence Bureau (IB), which is presently celebrating its
125th anniversary, and the Research & Analysis Wing ( R&AW), the
external intelligence agency which came into being in September 1968, will be
having new chiefs for a period of two years from January 1,2013.
The Appointments Committee of the
Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh, is reported to have chosen
Shri Asif Ibrahim, an IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, to head the IB
and Shri Alok Joshi, an IPS officer of the Haryana cadre, to head the R&AW.
Both are highly experienced and
competent officers who will do credit to the two organisations. While the
experience of Shri Asif Ibrahim has been in his State and the IB, that of Shri
Joshi has been in his State as well as in the IB and the R&AW.
The two officers will be heading their
respective organisations at a time when they will be implementing the
recommendations of the Naresh Chandra Task Force on National Security,
submitted to the Prime Minister on May 24 last. The Task Force report contains
important recommendations for the revamp and modernisation of our national
security set-up, including the various agencies of our intelligence community
and the agencies responsible for cyber security.
This is the first revamp being
undertaken 10 years after the earlier revamp undertaken after the Kargil
conflict of 1999. The effectiveness of the new revamp and modernisation will
depend on the co-operation between the agencies of the intelligence community
in the implementation. Both Shri Asif Ibrahim and Shri Joshi have a
well-established reputation as excellent team players and this should help in
the smooth implementation.
They will be heading their agencies at a
time when globally intelligence agencies are re-strategising their charter. For
10 years after 9/11, their focus was largely on counter-terrorism. As a result,
the focus on area studies somewhat suffered. There is now an attempt to pay
more attention to area studies without diluting the focus on counter-terrorism.
Non-traditional threats to national
security form an important component of this new strategy under formulation.
Cyber security is one of the
non-traditional threats receiving increasing attention. Protection of our national security and other critical
infrastructure from cyber threats orchestrated by State and non-State actors is
now an important task of the intelligence community as a whole. Shri Ibrahim
and Shri Joshi will be required to pay leadership role in the matter along with
their other colleagues in the community. The reported fact that Shri Ibrahim ,
apart from being an expert in counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency and
counter-intelligence related intelligence tasks, is also well-versed with cyber
security should be of help to the Government in this regard.
Shri Ibrahim will be taking over at a
time when the exercise for the revamping of our counter-terrorism architecture
has run into a road-block due to political mishandling of the creation of the
National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC). In whatever form the NCTC is
ultimately set-up to meet the sensitivities of the State Governments, the
Multi-Agency Centre of the IB set up
under the post-Kargil revamp will be an important core of it. Better
co-ordination and understanding between the IB and the State Police under Shri
Ibrahim’s stewardship would be important in this regard.
Both the IB and the R&AW have
previously been headed by officers belonging to non-Muslim minorities. This is
the first time since 1947 that a Muslim officer will be heading the most
important agency of the intelligence community. Many countries in the
democratic world have been debating for some years now how to give better
representation to religious and ethnic minorities and women in the intelligence
profession and how to enhance their leadership role.
The nomination of Shri Ibrahim to head
the IB is not only a recognition by the Government of his record and
competence, but but also an acknowledgement that the time has come to give this
debate greater prominence and meaning in our country. Not only religious and
ethnic minorities, but also women are inadequately represented at leadership
levels in our intelligence community. This needs to be rectified.
( The writer is Additional
Secretary (Retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India. The article written
at the request of Editor, Rediff.com)
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